Blades of Sorcery Read online

  The tiny voices were incessant, but she kept pushing them away—though some were too persistent, with more and more force each time. She wouldn’t harm them, they weren’t enemies, but they couldn’t be allowed to stand against her, either.

  She didn’t register her actions as violence against her own side until she broke the arm of someone who insisted on holding her back.

  Reben, a small voice in her mind whispered before the darkness brushed it away.

  All Sara could focus on, all that she could see in that moment, was the four enemy guards and their leader kneeling in front of her, terror etched on their faces.

  That was all right. They’d be at peace soon.

  She raised her sword to kill the leader first. Cut the head off the snake and the body would fall, she knew. She would do her gods’ work and kill them all.

  Then someone knelt directly in front of the Kade leader’s stiff, unrelenting body. Pride warring with surprise was on the leader’s face. But it was the person who knelt in front of him that Sara couldn’t ignore. This was one person she couldn’t push aside, though she could see fresh bruises on his face and knew instinctively that it was she who had hurt him.

  Ezekiel fearfully looked up at her. His hair was in disarray, with dirt and blood interspersed liberally in the wavy brown curls.

  She must have pushed him down, she thought.

  Or someone else did in the battle we have been waging since midnight, the darkness in her head said.

  Sara chewed her lip, indecision warring with a warrior’s instinct as the long sword stayed raised in her hand.

  “Don’t do this, Sara,” Ezekiel said. “They’ve surrendered. They’ve given in.”

  She tried to speak, and the darkness rose to stop her.

  Her hand inched down to cleave the enemy in two, but Ezekiel was still in the way. The darkness inside her whispered that if he wouldn’t be moved, he was the enemy too. But Sara wasn’t going to let herself kill her own friend. She fought back, straining, pushing for control over her own mind.

  As seconds passed, she had to wonder though—if she couldn’t get this darkness under control—was she ready to kill Ezekiel Crane?

  Hand raised as her mind screamed for blood, the darkness within her said that she was.

  But the person within that knew who she was, and knew that she would regret that action, argued the difference.

  Halting her hand and speaking in short bursts, as if it took everything she had to do so, Sara said, “Ezekiel, move. I need to finish this. They came to kill us. We must kill them.”

  They all knew the “we” she was speaking of weren’t those surrounding her. Not this time.

  Stubbornly, Ezekiel shook his head and wouldn’t move from his place shielding the Kades.

  It would have been brave had it not been so foolish.

  Still, Sara stayed her hand.

  Seeing her hesitance, Ezekiel quickly said, “Their people have been killed off, their beasts of war dead, and their dragons gone. Let it go, Sara.”

  Sara said through gritted teeth, “I can’t.”

  “Why?” came a voice in her ear—Karn, maybe.

  Sara waved him off with her left hand.

  Well, “waved” might have meant “punched” in this circumstance. She didn’t want to hurt them. She didn’t. But actions had consequences, and the darkness wanted blood. More blood.

  Ezekiel flapped his hand at the others as they gathered around Karn to help him up, telling them without words not to approach her again.

  That was good, Sara thought from within the darkness. She couldn’t be held accountable for what she did next, not after she had warned them. Pleaded with them.

  At those thoughts, her gaze flashed back over the five remaining Kades cowering on the ground behind Ezekiel. They had to know he was the only thing keeping them in the land of the living.

  As her mind fought with her battle mage’s darkness, her hand physically shook with the effort to stay her instincts.

  Sara couldn’t hold out any longer.

  Then she spat out words before she had even thought them through.

  “The head, then!” she said with fury. “Give me the head and the snake dies. A head for the body.”

  Horror grew on Ezekiel’s face. He knew exactly what she wanted. To him, the dilemma was insurmountable, but to the Kade leader behind him, it wasn’t.

  The man stood up stiffly, pride etched on his face. “You’ll let my men go?”

  Sara growled as she replied in the affirmative.

  “Then I’m yours,” he said coolly.

  Appeased for the moment, the darkness receded as Sara promised it more blood. Later.

  For now, she needed to be able to reason…and think.

  And so with the hardest push of her life she emerged from the darkness at least partially and did something none of her ancestors had done in doing so—she stayed sane.

  Eyeballing the Kade leader standing above him nervously, Ezekiel made a decision. Sara could see the internal calculations on his face, and the answer was obvious—if this man wanted to sacrifice himself, who was Ezekiel to stop him?

  So Ezekiel too stood up and quietly backed out of the way. After a few moments of hesitance, as they watched their leader face down the fearsome girl who was undefeated on the battlefield, the four remaining Kades scurried off to the side behind Ezekiel and the others.

  When Sara didn’t move to pursue them, their leader gave her an approving nod. “Thank you.”

  Bitterly Sara Fairchild said, “Don’t thank me yet. You have a lot to answer for. Starting with what you’re doing in the middle of our encampment and why are you here?”

  The Kade invasion bowed his head for a moment, as if he was thinking and didn’t want her to read his thoughts.

  When he raised his head and looked her clear in the eye, he said simply, “I’m a Kade, a loyal member of forces too great for you to bear, and I’m here on orders to destroy you.”

  His words were fierce and they rang true, but there was something off, something missing that she couldn’t quite put a finger on and she would before the night was out.

  Because she had the Kades right where she wanted them finally.

  Under her thumb and at the mercy of the combined imperial armed forces guard.

  Ragtag though they may be, Sara thought with a cool glance at her group. We got the job done.

  And that was all that mattered. They had accomplished what others in the Mercenary’s Guild and the Empress’s army had been trying to do for months, fight the Kade to a standstill and get the truth—whatever it maybe—out of them.

  Because no one really knew why they were fighting this war. No one in the trenches anyway. Oh, words were battered about. Words like traitor and disgraceful. But nothing that said what or why.

  As she stared at the man kneeling in front of her with hooded eyes, Sara followed her arms and prepared to break him.

  7

  Head bowed but still unbroken, the Kade leader spoke to her before she could question him again, “I gave you an honest-and-true answer. It may not be one which slides down your throat like honey but it is honesty.”

  Sara stilled as she felt her hand twist the hilt of the sword held tightly in her grip. It was almost as if another person was inhabiting her body. It was the darkness wanting the blood she promised.

  Later, she soothed this separate person.

  A different person. One who only dreamed in blood and death, but that person wasn’t Sara. At least it wasn’t the person she wanted to be, so she firmly grabbed the darkness inside her as best as she could. If she couldn’t push it away with a threat present then at the very least she could put a choke hold on it.

  Until she was ready to proceed and done talking.

  “Keep your word,” the Kade leader snapped at her like a leashed dog from the ground.

  Sara Fairchild turned cold, distant eyes upon him but she understood that his bark was all he had left. Being surrounded
and under surveillance, he could do more for his men and in that sense—she approved of him more now than before.

  She approved of his fight for his men. Deciding that she had lingered long enough, Sara turned to look off in the distance to the area where the Kade portal was still live. Wavering, but live, which meant that one of the five here was the key to it. Not any of their compatriots who had already lost their lives on the battlefield.

  Although she had already agreed to let them go, that knowledge stilled her. She even briefly considered taking them prisoner, but she figured if the Mercenary’s Guild or the imperial forces wanted ransoms, well, they could get them themselves. Sara was done with them after they and their leadership had left them all to die not once, not twice, but multiple times.

  She was no fool, and neither were her people.

  But she was fair when she could pierce the darkness to think…and she approved of this Kade. Not at what he’d done or even what he’d accomplished, which was a standstill against overwhelming odds in the center of an enemy encampment. But because of the leadership qualities he possessed—he was a tactician who was willing to sacrifice himself for his men.

  She could only wish for such a man amongst the leaders of her own side.

  Waving her hand at the portal, she gave the leader a dark look and said, “Send them through before I change my mind.”

  Surprisingly, the darkness within her didn’t object to this. She wondered why—maybe she was stronger than it after all.

  The Kades went to the portal, and with one last, lingering look, each of the soldiers walked through and left behind their leader making one last stand. She waited, and then the portal disappeared—with a swift wave of the leader’s hand in a cipher she was sure he didn’t want memorized. This, too, Sara filed away to study later.

  For now, she focused on the present, and she was pleasantly surprised.

  She had expected betrayal—in fact, she had lived for it. Hoping for a new fight. A better fight. More hordes to pour through the portal and more heads to feed her blade—but that wasn’t what had happened.

  Resentment took its place, and now Sara knew why the darkness had been so eager to accept this deal. It wasn’t sentient, she knew that, but she had the feeling it had hoped for more betrayal and for more enemies to come through to feed its insatiable need for blood. But none did.

  Now there was only one.

  Weaponless.

  Defenseless.

  Unsuitable.

  The Kade leader must have read the disappointment etched on her hungry face; she didn’t try to hide it. He said, “We would not deceive such a formidable opponent on their own grounds. Calling more of my men here would have done no good—just assured more sacrifice.”

  Sara raised an eyebrow at the compliment, but said nothing. She could barely stop herself from striking him, after all. Now that the darkness knew it wasn’t going to be fed more, well, it just wanted what was standing in front of it. Resentment had morphed to revulsion and eager desire to at least take one more victim, as it was going to be able to ride out on a wave of blood with the majority of the enemy gone.

  She held it in check—barely—giving the Kade leader the respect he was due…and the chance to say a few last words.

  But if he had any to give, he wasn’t saying them.

  “Speak,” Sara said between stiff lips.

  The unarmed leader smiled. “What is there to say? I’m ready to die.”

  Sara’s hand tensed on her sword hilt, but then someone spoke up—from a careful distance away.

  “You could at least tell us what your objective was,” Karn said as he leaned on the base of his axe with a glum look. “We certainly sacrificed enough tonight for that.”

  Sara waited as the Kade leader deliberated in his head, then shrugged. “There’s no harm in that—now that it’s over.”

  “What is?” Karn asked.

  “Everything,” the man said. “We have what we came for.”

  A chill went down Sara’s spine at those words. They were perfectly acceptable for the conversation, deliberate, even. But the tone—the tone held joy. Joy, not fear. Pride, not resentment.

  Meanwhile, everyone gathered around looked confused, even indignant.

  “Are you insane or do you take us for fools?” asked Isabelle.

  “Neither and both,” the Kade leader said. “I merely answered your queries.”

  Sara didn’t understand, and from the confusion on their faces, neither did anyone else. How and why could he be this confident when it was clearly her side that had won this tête-à-tête? She didn’t know. But judging by the leader’s stiff bearing, he wasn’t going to tell her unless they employed tactics that she could tell the darkness would not have time for. And she and the darkness did not have the patience necessary.

  If one drop of his blood spilled, his head would follow. It was her kill.

  As she spiraled back into the madness, Sara focused on one thing: the leader’s smug face. That face hid secrets; it said that if she killed him now, he’d be taking some very important knowledge to the grave with him.

  “Tell us,” Sara said with a menacing step forward.

  Up until now he had been brave, but even the fearless folded when they saw her dark gaze.

  Whatever he saw in her gaze moved him to answer. He spoke, and they listened in disbelief.

  “A distraction?” said Ezekiel in a daze.

  “No, it can’t be!” Reben said frantically as she turned around and looked up and out. It was true—the sky above the dome was dark and the surrounding area looked ominously silent. But they would have heard. They would have known.

  “Surely they would have,” Sara muttered doubtfully to herself.

  The Kade laughed as he said, “The dome walls only show you what you want to see. You’d have to venture outside to see the true effect.”

  “You’re lying!” Marx growled as he strode forward, accidentally cutting off Sara’s path to her kill. She none too gently shoved him aside and pushed him in a more helpful direction.

  Then Sara rose full from the darkness that held her, the darkness that kept her mind pliant and her battle mage skills honed to peak intensity.

  She saw her face mirrored in the Kade leader’s glistening gaze.

  Then she said with a shake of her head, “You can’t think we’re fools.”

  “Fools, no,” he said softly. “But neither am I, and I didn’t sacrifice myself for no reason. I have information. Information for your leadership.”

  “The leadership you killed off? With your ghostly army?” Sara asked.

  He gave a shrug. “There are always more, no?”

  Sara took a step back, disturbed.

  There was no lying in his tone. No dishonesty in his gaze. If he was fabricating his words in an effort to make one heroic last stand and strike fear in their hearts before he died, well…he certainly believed what he was saying was the truth.

  Slowly, Sara lowered her sword. This would take more thought and more decision power than she had. It was one thing to kill an invader; it was another to kill off a leader who might have crucial insight into the tactics that had wrought devastation to their encampment tonight…according to him, anyway.

  Stepping back, Sara said, “Reben, come here.”

  She looked over at her friend and saw fear on Reben’s face. She quickly masked it, but it had been there for all to see. Sara tried to not let it affect her as she looked away and gave Reben time to compose herself.

  Before anyone could say something and speak up on behalf of the group, Reben walked over to Sara of her own accord. Sara was silently proud of her, even as she winced internally as she got a good look at Reben’s arm which Sara had apparently broken in her haze.

  After swallowing harshly, Sara asked, “Is your arm well?”

  “Well enough,” Reben replied. “What do you need?”

  Sara faced her head-on, her sword down by her side. “For you to do some reconnaissance for m
e. Are you up for it?”

  A bright smile lit Reben’s face. “Anytime, anywhere.”

  Sara nodded in approval and, with some relief, outlined what she wanted Reben to do.

  It was time to take back the night.

  As Reben listened, she nodded periodically.

  “Sounds simple enough. You want me to scout out the encampment for you.”

  Sara nodded. “But be careful. If his information is right, we aren’t the only ones here by a long shot, and haven’t been for a long while.”

  Reben cocked her head to the side. “And if he’s not?”

  “Meaning?” Ezekiel said as he pointedly stepped forward and into their conversation.

  Sara didn’t dismiss him. He was right. She wanted to know what Reben was thinking as well.

  Hesitantly, after eyeing them both, Reben said, “If he’s not right and it’s just our forces out there, somehow, someway, they looked away. They left us in the middle of an invasion to die.”

  “You think they broke camp?” Ezekiel asked.

  None of them would be surprised, judging by the faces around them.

  Hesitantly, Reben replied, “I think they could have. That or even looked away as the Kades dropped a heck of a sight-and-sound shield over us all.”

  “What’s that?” Marx asked from over in the distance.

  Sara absent-mindedly bit her lip. “The dome overhead. It seems to both function as a physical barrier but also has taken on components more common to a sight-and-sound shield, specifically the ability to secure the physical area in proximity to an individual or group so that no one can hear a conversation or even see the person inside the casting area.”

  Several heads nodded all around.

  “Yes, but creating a shielding around a group this large must be taxing, even physically debilitating,” Ezekiel said.

  The man who had managed to put a protective shielding around all of them against dragon fire earlier spoke up: “But possible if your life depends on it.”

  “Or if the Kades were desperate enough,” Ezekiel said.